Written Answers Monday 15 February 2010

Scottish Executive

Health

Michael McMahon (Hamilton North and Bellshill) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what systems NHS Health Scotland has inhouse for monitoring the effectiveness of its corporate communications activity with MSPs; what changes have been made recently as a direct result of such monitoring, and when NHS Health Scotland will share this information with MSPs and other stakeholders.

Nicola Sturgeon: The Scottish Government can confirm that NHS Health Scotland does not monitor the effectiveness of its corporate communications, but monitors the effectiveness of its campaigns across a wide range of audiences. NHS Health Scotland does this through tracking awareness and understanding among the target audience, feedback from NHS partners, number of opportunities to see of advertising, visits to campaign websites, media coverage, programme mentioned in a parliamentary question, motion or debate, visits to road shows and NHS24 helpline enquiries. This information is used to develop subsequent phases of the campaign in terms of creative approaches and channels used. Information on each campaign is shared with campaign partners and can be made available on request.

Health

Michael McMahon (Hamilton North and Bellshill) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-30742 by Nicola Sturgeon on 26 January 2010, what action the Directorate of Equalities and Planning of NHS Health Scotland took to ensure that the original proposal to appoint consultants to assist NHS Health Scotland communicate with MSPs would have delivered opportunities for organisations from the major equality communities to have bid for the work or parts of it.

Nicola Sturgeon: The Scottish Government can confirm that the Directorate of Equalities and Planning within NHS Health Scotland has ensured there is a mandatory equality and diversity questionnaire which forms part of all tender documentation considered by the organisation. Contracts and agency appointments are all tested through rigorous procurement procedures. This includes taking account of principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination in the tendering process. The pre-qualification questions are all compliant with the directives contained within the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 and EU Procurement legislation. This tender documentation is derived directly from the Scottish Government’s Procurement toolkit.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-30743 by Nicola Sturgeon on 26 January 2010, whether there will be a cost in addition to NHS Health Scotland’s publicity budget of £55,000 as a result of the decision to carry out all corporate communications activity inhouse.

Nicola Sturgeon: The Scottish Government can confirm that there will be a cost in terms of time and capacity of the team, not a financial cost.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many nurses have graduated in each year since 2007.

Nicola Sturgeon: The latest available data on the number of nurses graduating from Scottish Higher Education Institutions since 2007 is set out in the following table.

  

Cohort
Numbers Graduating


2006-07
2,415


2007-08
2,422 


2008-09
2,403

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many nurses are expected to graduate in 2010.

Nicola Sturgeon: We will not know how many nurses will graduate during 2010 until they have graduated. However, we do not expect the numbers to vary greatly from those of the previous three years. I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31151 on 3 February 2010 which contains that information.

  All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what the average cost is of training a nurse.

Nicola Sturgeon: The average cost of training a nurse is £40,729, over the course of the three year pre-registration programme.

  This figure comprises the unit cost of teaching provided to higher education institutions and the cost of the Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many nurses have left the NHS and how many have retired in each year since 2007.

Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested on nursing and midwifery leavers (head count) for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08 is available from the National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5247.html - Staff_turnover. The information requested on retirements is not centrally held.

Teachers

Elizabeth Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many specialist PE teachers there have been in primary schools in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority.

Michael Russell: Information on the number of specialist PE teachers in primary schools by local authority is only available from 2003. The information can be found in the statistical bulletins Teachers in Scotland for the years from 2003 onwards. Links to the information are set out as follows:

  2003: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/07/19729/40844.

  2004: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/25165316/54091.

  2005: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/03/28083648/71.

  2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/27085753/75.

  2007: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/03/18093809/84.

  2008: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/29102949/79.

  2009: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/02/09090009/78.

Teachers

Elizabeth Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many specialist PE teachers there have been in secondary schools in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority.

Michael Russell: Information on the number of teachers by local authority in secondary schools whose main subject is PE is only available from 2003. The information can be found in the statistical bulletins Teachers in Scotland for the years from 2003 onwards. Links to the information are set as follows:

  2003: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/07/19729/40854

  2004: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/25165316/54274.

  2005: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/03/28083648/81.

  2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/27085753/85.

  2007: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/03/18093809/95.

  2008: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/29102949/90.

  2009: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/02/09090009/89.

Teachers

Elizabeth Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many visiting specialist PE teachers there have been in primary schools in each year, broken down by local authority.

Elizabeth Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many visiting specialist PE teachers there have been in secondary schools in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority.

Michael Russell: Information on the qualification of centrally employed teaching staff who would fulfil the role of visiting specialists is only available from 2006 and can be found in the statistical bulletins Teachers in Scotland for the years in question. Links to the information available are set as follows. Information on which sector the teachers worked in is not available.

  2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/27085753/97.

  2007: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/03/18093809/108.

  2008: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/29102949/103.

  2009: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/02/09090009/65.